From the Ashes
by Catred
Summary: A rewrite of my story Lab Rats. Cathreda is a researcher at Umbrella, but she has a 'little' accident while getting rid of a test subject. Now she thinks she's fonud a cure, but can she get to it in time? Rated T for mild violence. Please Review!
1. A monster is born

AN: Hello! This is a rewrite of one of my other stories: Lab Rats. If you would like to, I'm looking for helpful feedback on this writing style and content. Giving me your opinion would really help! I'm planning to rewrite all of the stroies that I've written for this series (it's only 4 or 5 stories), so it'd be nice to know if this is a good style.

Anywho, THANKS FOR READING XD (and reviewing plz!)

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><p>There was only one thought in Cathreda Anderson's mind as she ran down the metal corridor, and it was beginning to annoy the hell out of her.<p>

_'I am ruined. If someone finds out, I'll be as dead as road kill on a Sunday afternoon…'_

She couldn't escape the facts though; she was in some deep shit. Usually it wouldn't make a difference to her if there was some danger involved with her work. Heck, it was in the job description! A researcher in bio-weaponry was probably as dangerous as it got these days, and she was working for the largest producer of bio-weapons in the world; good old Umbrella Inc. But this time… well this time it was different.

This time, Cathreda hadn't expected the outcome, and that was not what she was being paid for. She was paid to understand every outcome even before the tests were started. How could this have happened? Her mind had been racing for the past few days to find some way to reverse what had been done to her. Something to turn back time before she turned into- No, she wouldn't think of that now. Now was not the time for self pity; now was the time for action.

Her brown heels clacked across the metal floor as she hurried through the maze of laboratories under Raccoon City. She was dressed he same as always: Black pants, a crisp white dress shirt, and her meticulously clean lab coat from which her badge hung. Her long black hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail, not a single hair out of place. Everything had to be perfectly the same as normal, even though she herself was not the same. Inside she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, but on the outside she had to be calm and collected.  
>Cathreda was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she almost missed her lab room door. She quickly slipped inside and closed the door behind her. She scanned the room, but didn't see anyone around.<p>

_'Good. No one will see then.'_

She walked over to one of the large tables in the room that was covered with scientific instruments and testers. She leaned down and open a small refrigerator that held several samples of her work. From them she took a small vial of a silvery liquid and held it up to the light. It was done! Quickly, she took a syringe and drained the liquid into it. The cure to all her problems was right here now she only had to-

"And what would that be Ms. Anderson? I hope it's not something you were hoping to slip past our walls." A deep voice said from the doorway. Cathreda was so startled she almost dropped the sample. She quickly turn to see that there were several men standing just inside the door with guns that were all pointed in her direction. The man who had spoken was standing just behind them with a slight smirk playing across his lips. The over head lights glinted off of his dark sunglasses, and Cathreda cursed the name that slipped through her lips.

"Wesker. I should have wondered why no one was here. I guess it's too late to say that I'm not trying to steal this?" She replied as she gripped the sample. If she didn't have this, she really would become something inhuman.

"Quite right you are. Your work ends here anyways. We don't need lab rats running around here." Cathreda's blood ran cold. Already? Hadn't she been careful enough since the accident? How could they have known what had happened?

"How do you know? I thought I got rid of everything!" Cathreda stammered, she was on the verge of that breakdown and it was taking all her wits to not fall in.

"You weren't careful enough then. But it's hard to know about the hidden cameras unless you've put them there yourself. Those cameras caught all of your little incident with the test subject. I wonder if the scratches it left have healed yet?"

Cathreda glanced down at her right arm. She had been sure it was dead, but when she had gone to dispose of the dead subject, it had attacked her and bitten her in the arm. From that point on, she had been looking for a cure to it. Even though she hadn't suffered from any of the side effects yet, she knew it was only a matter of time before she herself would turn into a monster like that. She couldn't let the virus take her over, she wouldn't let this be the end of her!

As quickly as the thought flew through her mind, she took the syringe and injected the cure into herself. The instant it was in her blood, everything else stopped and all she could do was feel the liquid turn her blood into lava. It burned all over her body, and as she crumpled to the ground, she felt it surge and pulse through her, changing something she couldn't place. It felt as if the world was closing in, and all she wanted to do was lash out and force the world back.

As she opened her eyes, the pain faded and the world retracted. It almost seemed to shun her for what she had done. She threw that thought aside in favor of the sound that was returning to her world. Voices. One was steady while the other seemed to be filled with fear. She couldn't yet make out what they were saying, but she had a feeling what it was.

"Sir, should we-", The fearful voice started, but was cut off by the steady one.

"No. Wait until she gets up. If she does." The voice brought Cathreda back to her senses. Suddenly everything that had just happened swarmed her mind and she felt something settle into her mind.

_'You know what you have to do. You have the power to now. Go ahead. Kill them, or they'll kill you.'_

She shivered, but her instincts were right. Play time was over. Time to get the hell out of here.

Cathreda let her instincts and rage take over, and it felt almost soothing the power that seem to surge through her. There was no pain and no worry, just the drive to get out. She pushed herself to her feet, but did not look at her enemies. She stared at her reflection in the glass of one of the cabinets. Her eyes were a deep blood red like something out of a horror movie. She almost felt like laughing. All that, and she was still a monster? Maybe after this she'd give up on her profession for good.

"What is she?" The fearful voice asked. As Cathreda turned toward the voice, all of the men at her door raised their guns and took aim. Normally it would have scared her, but right now it just made her more annoyed with them.

"Shoot me. I'd like to see you try to kill me now." She challenged them. They took her invitation and began to fire.

Time seemed to slow down as Cathreda moved. She saw each bullet as it approached and had plenty of time to duck and swerve around them in an intricate dance until she was close enough to reach out and grab one of them. She avoided Wesker, but didn't spare him from being smashed against the wall by another man when she threw him out of the way. She wanted to rip these men apart, but couldn't bring herself to give into the urge to kill them. She would keep that much of her humanity for now. They fell like dominos before her and then she was thru the door in a heartbeat. She raced toward the exit even as she heard alarms blaring overhead. She was now an enemy of Umbrella, and she'd keep it that way till the day she dies.

Wesker gripped his broken sunglasses as he looked at all of the samples. Cathreda had made something very powerful. Something that could work to his advantage…


	2. A heart bleeds

AN: Second part, YAY! Anyways, I started trying to rewrite the second chapter of Lab Rats, but then decided that there should be some explanation of the time in between those two points.

With out further ado, part 2:

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><p>After she had escaped from the labs and the adrenaline had worn off, Cathreda had found herself with no place to go. She knew that she had just been shot up the list of targets for Umbrella's assassins, and no place would be safe for long. Before she knew it, she was at her front door fumbling with her keys as she hurried to get inside. She had lost most of her composure as she'd run away from her past, and as the front door closed behind her, she collapsed onto the floor in a flood of tears.<p>

_'What have I done? How could I be so stupid? I'll be dead within the hour and hauled back to be dissected like a frog!' _Her mind screamed at her, and she couldn't agree more, but she still needed to know what she had become. She pulled herself up off the floor and stumble into her bedroom. There was a mirror on the her closet door, and as she reached it, Cathreda couldn't believe what she saw.

There were no burning red eyes staring back at her. No horror movie monster dropped to it's knees as she fell to the ground. Just her. She looked the same as she had any other day that she'd looked in the mirror. There was no way to tell what she'd just gone through except for her disarranged clothes and her untidy hair. For a second it all felt like a bad dream, but then the pain started again.

Her blood began to boil and sear her veins as she clutched at herself, not knowing what to do. It hurt throughout her body, and she could barely think through the pain. Se swung out her right hand, looking for something, anything, that could help ease the pain somehow. She heard a crash as her hand slammed into the mirror with enough force to bend the door into the closet. She looked down at her hand and found that it had been sliced open like raw meat and was bleeding profusely. Some of her blood dripped off her hand and hit the floor, then promptly began to burn a hole through the floor.

Cathreda's mind was suddenly released from the pain, and she gasped in shock. She quickly grabbed a piece of her coat and wrapped it around her hand, but it was quickly burned away as her acid blood continued to pour from her wound. She stared at her hand trying to think of a way to clot the blood. It didn't seem to burn though her own flesh, but she had a feeling that it could easily do so if given the chance. As she noticed the growing hole in the floor, Cathreda put her other hand around the bleeding one and stood, her worries pushed to the wayside as she tried to think of a way to clot the wound. As she hurried toward her kitchen, she felt her hand tingling and looked down to see that the skin of her hand had stared to creep back up over the wounds. She had to look away from the disgusting sight of her own body healing.

When the tingling feeling had stopped, she looked back at her hand. There wasn't a single mark left on her flesh, and it was the same slightly tan color that it had been before. Everything was back to normal.

_'For now. When will it happen again though?'_ She thought restlessly. She moved back to the bedroom and began to survey the damage. There was a hole big enough for a person to get through that seemed to go down to the foundations of the one story house. She guessed that it had probably run out of juice the further it had gone down.

"Well so much for normal…" Cathreda mumbled as the truth set in. She could look normal, she could act normal, but she could never actually be normal again. That possibility was now gone, and she'd never get it back. It was time to move one, and if she didn't get a hold of herself now, she'd never survive.

Her inner argument resolved, Cathreda picked up a backpack from inside the closet, and began to pack her life into that small bag. This was what her life had amounted to so far, but she'd been given another chance. Another chance to make things right, and she'd take hold of it with all of her might.


End file.
